1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a medium suction support device for supporting a recording medium by suction, and a medium conveying device comprising the medium suction support device.
2. Related Art
In inkjet printers and other recording devices, when a recording process is performed on recording paper or another recording medium, the recording medium must be supported on a platen so as to have a certain alignment (a parallel alignment) relative to the recording head.
Particularly when roll paper is used as the recording medium, the end of the roll paper rises up off the platen due to curling, and a paper suction part is therefore provided for suctioning the roll paper to the platen in order to keep the paper from rising.
With this paper suction part, numerous holes are usually provided to the platen, and outside air is sucked in via the suction holes by a fan installed in the reverse side of the platen, thereby holding the roll paper on the platen by suction (negative pressure suction).
When roll paper or another recording medium is placed on a platen and conveyed, not all of the suction holes will necessarily be covered by the recording medium, depending on variations in the size of the recording medium (variations in the dimension in the width direction), the conveyed state (position), and other factors. In other words, since there are open suction holes not covered by the recording medium, air will leak out from these suction holes (air leakage occurs).
When a large number of suction holes are in this open state, the suction force holding the recording medium by suction decreases, and the recording medium is not completely kept from rising.
Therefore, a printer device has been proposed in which a shutter mechanism for incrementally opening and closing the numerous suction holes is provided on the reverse side of the platen in which the numerous suction holes are formed, and the shutter mechanism is operated according to the conveyed state of the recording medium or other factors, as shown in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-205855.